Tributes continue to flow in for Yankunytjatjara leader and activist Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG, who passed away peacefully on Sunday surrounded by family on Kaurna Country in Adelaide, aged 91.
Dr O’Donoghue’s niece, Deb Edwards, released a statement on behalf of the family, describing her aunt as a “formidable leader who was never afraid to listen, speak and act.”
“Our Aunty and Nana was the matriarch of our family, whom we have loved and looked up to our entire lives. We adored and admired her when we were young and have grown up full of never-ending pride as she became one of the most respected and influential Aboriginal leaders this country has ever known.”
“Aunty Lowitja dedicated her entire lifetime of work to the rights, health, and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We thank and honour her for all that she has done – for all the pathways she created, for all the doors she opened, for all the issues she tackled head-on, for all the tables she sat at and for all the arguments she fought and won.”
On Sunday, her family gave permission for Dr O’Donoghue’s name and image to be used.
Australian Indigenous rights activist and former politician Patrick Dodson described Dr O’Donoghue as an “extraordinary person of great courage and strength.”
“[It’s] a sad day for First peoples of this Nation,” Dodson said in a statement. “Her leadership in the battle for justice was legendary. Hers was a strong voice, and her intelligent navigation for our rightful place in a resistant society resulted in many of the privileges we enjoy today.”
“She will be forever remembered in our hearts.”
Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney called Dr O’Donoghue a “fearless and passionate advocate” who “dedicated her life to improving the lives of Indigenous Australians and deserves our deepest respect and gratitude.”
“Australia mourns the passing of Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue and it is with great sadness and love that I pay tribute to her remarkable legacy,” she said.
“Throughout her career in public life, Dr O’Donoghue displayed enormous courage, dignity and grace. She was a truly extraordinary leader. Lowitja was not just a giant for those of us who knew her, but a giant for our country.”
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson described Dr O’Donoghue as Australia’s “greatest leader of the modern era”.
“She was full of grace and fortitude,” he said in a statement. “She was the definition of courage and never lapsed in her principles. Her love and loyalty to our people across the country was boundless.”
“We owed her an unrepayable debt for the sacrifices she made while she lived. Her memory will never be forgotten and her legacy will endure. Her passing … ends an extraordinary public life, marked by unstinting service and dedication to her people and country.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined in the chorus of tributes, describing Dr O’Donoghue as “one of the most remarkable leaders this country has ever known”.
“As we mourn her passing, we give thanks for the better Australia she helped make possible,” he said in a statement, posted on X.
“Dr O’Donoghue had an abiding faith in the possibility of a more united and reconciled Australia. It was a faith she embodied with her own unceasing efforts to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to bring about meaningful and lasting reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.”
On Sunday, South Australian Attorney-General Kyam Maher wrote a tribute on his Facebook page, extending his sympathies to Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue’s family, friends, and associates.
“In honouring Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue’s memory, may we be inspired by the countless positive changes she contributed over her life,” he wrote. “We recognise the profound impact she had on the country and the many lives she touched. Her legacy will forever stand as a testament to the influence of her relentless dedication and service.”
“Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue’s leadership was not just about strength and determination; she led with a presence that inspired others to rise. Her legacy as a leader of both conviction and compassion will continue to inspire generations to come.”
Maher added that at an “appropriate moment” he will reach out to Dr O’Donoghue’s family “with the offer of a State Funeral, in recognition of [her] incredible service.”
Background
She was born in 1932 on Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands at Granite Downs station (Indulkana) in South Australia. She was the fifth child of Lily, a Anangu Yankunytjatjara woman, and Tom, a first-generation Irishman.
She was assigned a birthdate of August 1st by missionaries. At age 2, she was removed from her family by South Australia’s Aboriginal Protection Board and taken to Colebrook Home for Half-Caste Children — an institution that was a “crowded house, full of children taken from their parents and told to forget”, according to Dr O’Donoghue’s official biographer, Stuart Rintoul.
It would be another 30 years before she saw her mother again. She never made contact with her father again.
In 2020, for Rintoul’s official biography of her, Lowitja: The authorised biography of Lowitja O’Donoghue, Dr O’Dononghue reflected on her earliest days of standing up for what she believed in: “One of the earliest memories I have is of coming between the matron and the strap. I would often stand in the way when the strap was intended for others, with the result being that I, too, got a beating.”
Like most Aboriginal children during the time, O’Dononghue was raised to be a servant. She received a secondary education before being sent to work at a sheep station and “told she would soon fall pregnant and amount to nothing.”
By age 16, she was working as a domestic servant in Victor Harbour hospital in South Australia, before being given the role of a nursing aide. But she yearned to do more with her life.
“I decided that I wanted to be ‘somebody’,” she told Rintoul. “That God had given me intelligence and that I was going to use it.”
She fought to undertake training to become a nurse, after being refused to attend Royal Adelaide Hospital because of her Aboriginality.
In a 1994 interview with National Film and Sound Archive, she described the incident: “The matron … stood me up in the corridor outside her office and just told me very bluntly that I should go to Alice Springs and nurse my own people.”
“Alice Springs of course being a place I had never been to and ‘my own people’ being a people that I didn’t know. So of course that really hurt me, but I didn’t give up.”
Garnering support from then-premier of SA, Sir Thomas Playford, she became the first Aboriginal nurse trainee at the Royal Adelaide hospital, before going on to become one of the first Aboriginal nurses in the country in 1959.
She experienced racial discrimination from patients, remembering one who told her “Don’t put your black hands on me.” She would continue to work as a nurse for the next ten years.
Her achievements
In 1962, Dr O’Donoghue travelled to India as a nurse with the Baptist Overseas Mission. On the eve of the 1967 referendum, she joined the South Australian branch of the Federal Office of Aboriginal Affairs as a public servant, campaigning for the recognition of Aboriginal peoples in the census.
Rising through the ranks in the public service for the next decade, Dr O’Donoghue became the first Aboriginal woman to be named a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1976. The following year, she was the founding chair of the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC), a short-lived Fraser Government initiative that gave a platform for Aboriginal people to express their views.
In 1984, she was recognised for her work to improve the welfare of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and named Australian of the Year.
By 1990, she was the inaugural Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Commission. At the time, the commission was the country’s most explicitly concerted initiative to give institutional structure to Aboriginal self-determination.
Dr O’Donoghue would lead the organisation for the next six years. In 1992, after the Mabo decision, she worked as a lead negotiator on the Native Title Act, working alongside key figures including then-prime minister Paul Keating, Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton to give justice for Aboriginal people and a “workable and fair system of land management” in the country.
In the same year, she became the first Aboriginal person to address the UN general assembly, delivering an opening address at the United Nations International Year of Indigenous People.
In 1999, she was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia for her commitment to public service and leadership in Indigenous affairs. In 2005 was honoured with a papal award, becoming Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great.
In 2010, The Lowitja Institute in Melbourne was named in her honour. The institute is dedicated to improving Indigenous health outcomes and supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations to lead research projects that advance the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Her legacy will also continue through the Lowitja O’Donoghue Foundation, which provides opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to advance equality, empowerment, voice and action, and the annual Lowitja O’Donoghue Orations at the University of Adelaide.
Photo Credit: Name and photo used with permission of Lowitja’s family. Photo by Leanne King